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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

EO 13650 §6(a) RFI – EPA Improvements

This is another in a series of posts addressing the recent request
for information (RFI) from the EO 13650 Working Group. That RFI addressed
requirements in §6(a) of the Improving Chemical Safety and Security Executive
Order (EO
13650) for the Working Group to “develop options for improved chemical
facility safety and security that identify improvements to existing risk
management practices through agency programs, private sector initiatives,
Government guidance, outreach, standards, and regulations”. Earlier posts in
the series include:

The RFI addresses EPA accomplishments in chemical safety regulation
in two principal areas; Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act
(EPCRA) and their Risk Management Program (RMP).

At the community level EPCRA ensures that local fire
departments, the agency most likely to respond to chemical emergencies, get the
needed information to properly respond to a chemical emergency. The RFI notes
(pg 4): “Local fire departments receive this information and should [emphasis
added] use it to understand the chemical present at facilities in their
community and what to do to respond to an accident at the facility.” The EPA
has no legal authority to influence or evaluate the community planning process.

The RFI also addresses the availability of the chemical
safety information for the public, stating that: “Additionally, the information
about chemicals in the community is made available to the public.” This is
technically true, but since 9-11 this information, while available at ‘local’
EPA reading centers, is not available from the EPA on the internet. Many
community activist organizations, however, have stepped in and placed the
information on their web sites.

The RMP program addresses chemical process safety with the
emphasis on preventing process upsets or accidents from affecting the local
public. The RFI notes that: “EPA conducts chemical plant safety inspection and
enforcement efforts at covered facilities based upon this rule.” It does not
address, however, how frequently such inspections are actually done with the
limited inspection staff available to the EPA or its allied State agencies.

Only one of these categories applies to the EPCRA program;
the improvements to CAMEO. All of the remainder deal with RMP issues. Part of
the reason for that is that Federal agencies are greatly restricted in the
requirements that they can place on State and local agencies for fear of
establishing ‘unfunded mandates’ that the local jurisdictions cannot afford to
implement.

One area that both EPA programs fail to address is the issue
of chemical ‘accidents’ caused by deliberate actions. While DHS clearly has the
responsibility of preventing terrorist attacks on facilities, that responsibility
does not currently extend to preventing actions by disgruntled employees or
contractors. Additionally, the response to or mitigation of the consequences of
chemical releases from such incidents is not within the area of expertise found
within DHS. The extent of the area affected by a deliberate release can be much
greater than the current ‘worst case scenario’ planning required under EPCRA.

Some Suggestions

While the CSB has been calling for EPA to cover reactive
chemical hazards for more than a decade now, there is no clear consensus of how
the agency is supposed to define such potential hazards, much less regulate them.
Probably the most hazardous of these reactions, as a general class, are the
self-accelerating decomposition reactions (SADR). If EPA were to initially
restrict itself to requiring chemical manufacturing facilities to identify potential
SADR reactions and methods to limit reaching the critical process upsets
(usually temperature) that start such reactions, it will have gone a long way
to reducing community risk from reactivity hazards.

The biggest potential improvement to EPCRA (short or
regulating the planning activities of State and local agencies which clearly
will not happen) would be to have an active requirement for covered facilities
to document response drill activities that include local emergency response
personnel. That way the regulatory onus will be placed on the facilities that
EPA can regulate.

To get around the problem of a too small inspection force
(Congressional action would be needed to significantly expand it, and
Congressional action is beyond the scope of the President’s EO) the EPA could
require RMP covered facilities to submit an annual report on their drill activities
in support of the EPCRA drill activity I’ve described above. This would not
necessarily ensure the quality of such drills, but at least an effort would be
made at most covered facilities.

Public Comments

This is a reminder that the whole purpose of this RFI is to
get public feedback on these proposed ideas. The RFI requests the public to
respond to these specific proposals for areas of improvement. That response
should address the following (pg 9):

• Examples of where implementation
of the same or similar options has been successful;

• Information or data that would
characterize the positive impacts the options might have, including additional
benefits;

• Potential limitations or
unintended consequences of the options described;

• Methods for implementing the
options, including methods for potentially increasing benefits or reducing
costs; or

• Alternatives to the options that
could achieve substantially the same result.

Comments need to be submitted by March 31st,
2014. They may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (www.Regulatons.gov; Docket
#OSHA-2013-0026). This Docket is now operational.

About Me

I spent 15 years in the US Army as an Infantry NCO. After getting out of the Army I started working in the chemical industry, getting my BSc Chemistry degree while working as a technician. I spent 12 years working as a process chemist in a specialty chemical company. Most recently I worked as a QA/R&D Manager in a specialty chemical manufacturing facility. Currently I am working as a freelance writer.